Would You Recommend How to Reassess Your Chess by Silman?
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agree with you completely. a great analogy...though I personaly prefer Dan Heisman as the best chess teacher in the world .
Manchester1111 wrote:
No, no, better forget about Silman. The very best book is:
Three steps to Chess Mastery
Pergamon Russian Chess Series
By: GM Alexei Suetin (very highly regarded writer and theorist)
USA: Pergamon Press Inc., Maxwell House, Fairview Park, Elmsford, New York 10523, USA
Bought that book many years ago, incredible good book, had enormeously many reprints.
Well, you all give it a try, you will see I am right.
Sadly no longer in print (and the secondhand options look rather expensive). Do you have a link to an excerpt so that I (we) can get an idea of what it's like?
Cadogen is the best chess publisher or one of the very best. Hey if it only takes three steps what are we all waiting for? Still like Silman for entertainment value if nothing else. Some of these guys are so dry to read I can't stand to study them, like Heisman for example. Seems like kind of a blowhard.
Nov 18, 2011
0
#264
Manchester1111 wrote:
And about studying chess, a bit another subject slightly, the following:
We all know the strenght of chess and depth of chess is as follows:
CM (Correspondence Master)
FM (FIDE-Master)
NM (National Master)
IM (International Fide Master)
GM (Grandmaster)
Some advocate to first read books of FM’s and after that books of Master in chess?? I fully disagree! Better go for the real core of chess in the beginning: the Grandmaster-games, they show one the real core of the real chess (i.e what is chess all about), the harmony of the pieces, all pieces working together as one team! In short: spring in the deep as from the very beginning! That will realy learn you about chess.
Besides the above, I fully agree with what all theory books state: “firstone has to learn/inderstand aqbout the tactics, and later on, if you mastered tactics (and remember, tactics are only “a tool” serving positional/strategical play!) to some degree go on to try to understand (study/learn) the core of the real chess : the positional/strategical way of playing chess(!) That is the core of chess: strategics and positional feeling/understanding.
So, first study (not read!), no study, Suetins “Three Steps to Chess Mastery”, is deep, yes, but you will learn enormeously much about the chess, getting to understand chess, that is.
And after that, there are many other great books, concentrating on the subjects openings/middle-games/end-games. I valued the books of GM Paul Keres and GM Anatoly Karpow very much on those subjects.
But first go study that best-seller “Three Steps to Chess Mastery”, you will never regret to have chosen that one.
I believe you listed titles incorrectly and ordered them incorrectly, Manchester1111.
Amazon.co.uk only list 3 editions of "Three Steps to Chess Mastery": two 1982 editions and one 1996 edition by Everyman Chess (apparently) even though the book cover image is the same as the one you show. This latter edition is on sale for 1 new from £92.74 7 used from £10.82, and most of the secondhand ones are much more expensive.
Books are great if you like collecting them. As far as improving playing strength they are very overrated.
Manchester1111 wrote:
WestofHollywood wrote:
Books are great if you like collecting them. As far as improving playing strength they are very overrated.
Agree, what is the purpose of "just collecting books"? no sense doing so, indeed. Though I have almost all books of Tom Clancy and Frederick Forsyth (conspiracy stories), but such is a coincidence, since I just like to read that kind of books.
As to chess, have to disagree with you: one realy needs books in the beginning "to get to know the why" of moves being made and why certain strategic plans are being followed in some specific positions, since such one can not deduct just by viewing actual moves of games made. And the "why", well, that you learn by studying selected books and studying annotated Grandmaster games.
sure you can learn something from books, but you learn more by having a coach, analyzing games with stronger players, solving puzzles and problems (true they may in a book), playing out positions against a computer, etc. Books in of themselves can only go so far with increasing practical playing strength.
milestogo2 wrote : { ....I cant stand to read them , like Heisman for example. seem's like kind of a blowhard.}.............Be fair please ! he has the most structural, organized and scientific approach to the reality of chess and chess learning & understanding.
I guess I just don't like his approach. It's a matter of taste, since there really is very little new in chess. Different authors convey the same ideas in different ways.
I spoke to a master level coach (adults and scholastics) who said that if you really want to be a tournament chess player, you need to choose a sound opening repertoire, learn its ideas, and ideally memorize it as you work on tactics, endgames, and strategy, and stick to the same repertoire for at least 2 years.
However, if you have limited time (e.g., you are not a professional), he said you should learn/memorize the opening FIRST, BEFORE tactics, strategy, and endgames. He acknowledged that this would take a few months.
He said advice that says "learn tactics until you are 1600 or 1800" is completely bogus, and even if people are capable of doing this, it is not the optimal or fastest way to learn.
I thought his perspective was interesting, very much different from the standard advice I have heard on chess learning. However, it should be noted that, in the spirit of this thread, Silman suggested something quite similar in his article on this site "Creating a Study Plan", which is reprinted in How To Reassess Your Chess, 4th edition.
This coach further said it is a serious hole in one's development when s/he doesn't know what to play for the first 10-15 moves and plays differently every time, and tries to "reinvent" the wheel as a class F, E, D, C etc. This needs to be addressed right from the beginning in one's chess learning since every game ever played ever has an opening.
There is a reason that opening books outsell every other category of chess materials, because it is such a difficult part of the game to get through unless you have specific knowledge about it. A lot of people say don't study the opening, just study tactics or middle games or endgames, etc. I don't think it is a practical approach, especially if you are trying to coach a chess team. If left to their own devices, a lot of young players will end up using 1.h4 as their main opening move, which won't get them too far.
It's easier to study openings (and chess in general, as everything at all) with some kind of information material, be it books, videos, a coach's lesson, friends' help, a forum discussion, etc. Otherwise you have to have very solid knowledge or a good talent in order to be able to think out good moves yourself, to be able to be sure in their quality, and to be able to think them out as fast and easy as reading/hearing them. Also, if you (already) have such skills it's questionable whether you'll need to study more at all, because studying is gaining information and skills, not applying them. That's why good chess books are useful.
Another question is what can be a good approach to studying openings. Knowing opening lines well is important, but its main purpose is saving time, because one can come up with a correct move in the opening with analysis instead of memorization too, but this will sometimes take long.This applies not only to playing openings, but also to studying them.
Maybe it's not as good to first study openings precisely as to decide on what pawn structures you like to play, both as White and Black. In this way, you will be able to play many different openings (even ones you are not familiar with) relatively well, because you will have a positional concept that will organize your moves, and you will be able to decide on exact move order and piece placement depending on the exact evolution of the game. You will also know what strategies are appropriate for those structures, which will make your move selection a bit easier.
Often in openings there are many possibilities, and many of them are good and relatively equal although they lead to different variations. It can be easier to instead study opening positions where there are significant choices to make that change the character of the game. If such a position is deeper into the variation, studying it can also be useful for game plan creation and execution and variation analysis training. In a similar way you can get more practical experience and improve intuition and pattern recognition, and you will be able to recognize similar positions and ideas regardless of how they have been reached; it will also improve your decision making in out-of-book positions.
If you first study in a similar way for a while, you'll then probably find it easier to study (and choose) opening moves, because you'll anticipate what they can lead to. It will also be easier for you to make the connection between the opening and the middlegame, and to find appropriate plans if you or your opponent go out of book.
I don't know all the details but I read somewhere that Bobby Fischer was supposed to give a chess lesson to someone. When the student arrived, Fischer threw an opening manual at him and told him to go through the entirety of the book, not skimping on any variations; and when he was finished with all of that; do it again.
simplysquare22 wrote:
I don't know all the details but I read somewhere that Bobby Fischer was supposed to give a chess lesson to someone. When the student arrived, Fischer threw an opening manual at him and told him to go through the entirety of the book, not skimping on any variations; and when he was finished with all of that; do it again.
One more example of great players not necessarily making great teachers.
dannyhume wrote:least 2 years.
. However, it should be noted that, in the spirit of this thread, Silman suggested something quite similar in his article on this site "Creating a Study Plan", which is reprinted in How To Reassess Your Chess, 4th edition.
Would you show us how to find this article? I tried to search for it on this site but nothing came up.
Very good book if you study it step by step and take your time to do the tests.
The idea of balancing suites me well, maybe others too.
It's easy to read as well
Well i should admit that this book is the best chess book that I've read.+It's still on my bed!
